Coming soon to a strip mall near you: A deeper-discount clothing chain owned by the off-price giant Ross Stores.

The new stores are called dd’s Discounts, and they’re a slightly smaller, somewhat cheaper version of Ross Dress for Less stores with similar merchandise: brand-name clothing, shoes and home goods.

Last year, the company opened its first two dd’s Discounts in San Diego County, one in the Logan Heights area of San Diego and another in Escondido. The chain’s next stores, in Chula Vista and San Marcos, will open Feb. 25.

“Hopefully customers will be delighted when they shop the store,” said corporate spokeswoman Bobbi Chaville. “I think they’ll find some terrific savings on recognizable brands.”

Each store gets three to six deliveries a week, ensuring a fresh product mix, she said.

While Ross is best known for its Dress for Less stores — there are just under 1,000 of them — it has big plans for the dd’s Discounts store format, which was launched in 2004.

There are currently 88 dd’s Discounts stores nationwide, and 20 more are opening this year, many in strip malls and older shopping centers. Eventually, there could be as many as 500, the company says.

The publicly traded company appears to be capitalizing on two trends: low-priced commercial real estate and value-minded consumers, said Bernhard Schroeder, director of the Entrepreneurial Management Center at San Diego State University.

Schroeder said that Ross seems to be creating a new, deeper-discount off-price concept — “sort of a space between the dollar store and Ross and Marshalls.”

It’s a smart strategy, he said, because Ross knows what sells well in its larger stores and can edit down its product mix for the smaller format. “I don’t know if the consumer will buy it; time will tell,” he said. “The question is: ‘Will it have legs beyond the recession?’ ”

Different brands

Both Ross and dd’s Discounts target value-conscious women and men between the ages of 18 and 54, but dd’s Discounts stores aim to serve a slightly lower-income shopper than Ross stores.

The big difference between the two brands appears to be in the stores’ size and price point:

• Ross Dress for Less stores carry items you might find at a Macy’s or Dillards department store, but priced at 20 percent to 60 percent less, Chaville said. The stores are 25,000 to 30,000 square feet.

• Dd’s Discounts stores carry items you might find at Sears, Walmart or Kohl’s, but priced at 20 percent to 70 percent less. The stores are 20,000 to 25,000 square feet and have a larger children’s department.

The company’s buyers are located in garment centers in New York City and Los Angeles, where they buy closeouts and canceled orders.

There’s a separate buying team for dd’s Discounts so the merchandise mix will be “very different,” Chaville said, although there could be some overlap of brand names.